Cytokine Regulation in Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

The idea that Alzheimer’s disease involves an ‘inflammation-like’ process, involving orchestrated cytokine and cellular responses that culminate in neuronal injury and destruction, has become so widely accepted that it is now difficult to remember how radical this idea was less than a decade ago. Alzheimer’s disease, at that time, was seen as a ‘neurodegenerative’ disease, in which accumulations of Aβ protein damaged neurons through direct and, we thought, soon-to-be elucidated, toxic mechanisms. Any associated glial cells were considered to be passive or ‘reactive’ late-comers, of no significance toward understanding the disease or its progression.